Mobile Application as Support of English on-Line Learning

Ales Berger

, Blanka Klimova

and Petra Poulova

Department of Informatics and Quantitative Methods, Faculty of Informatics and Management,

University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic,

Department of Applied Linguistics, Faculty of Informatics and Management,

University of Hradec Kralove, Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic

Keywords: Android, Blended Learning, e-Learning, Mobile Application.

Abstract: Currently, mobile devices, respectively smartphones, are an inseparable part of everyday human activities,

including education. The purpose of this article is to compare available language learning mobile apps on the

market and discuss their pros and cons. In addition, the authors describe a newly developed mobile app

focused on learning and practicing of English language vocabulary and phrases, tailored to the needs of its

users. The findings show that this mobile app is user-friendly and students appreciate its interactivity.

1 INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, mobile devices are an inseparable part of

everyday human activities. Research shows that

especially young people at the age of 18-29 years are

the main owners of smartphones (WHO 2016). As

Saifi (2017) states, 52% of the time individuals spend

on digital media is on mobile apps. In fact, the age

group of 18-24 years spends about 94 hours per

month on mobile applications (apps) (App 2017).

According to the statistics, women spend more time

on the mobile web and mobile apps than men. The

statistics further reveal that people spend 43% of their

mobile app time on games, 26% on social

networking, 10% on entertainment, 10% on utilities,

2% on news and productivity, 1% on health fitness

and lifestyle, and 5% on others (Saifi 2017)

In addition, young people often use mobile apps

in the acquisition of their knowledge and skills. The

reason is that smartphones are easy to carry and the

Inter-net/Wifi connection is available almost

anywhere in the developed countries. Thus, students

can study anywhere and at any time (Oz 2013).

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8000-9766

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5269-4065

2 STUDENTS’ NEEDS

Research indicates that the use of smartphone apps is

effective in the teaching of language at a university,

especially in the teaching of vocabulary (Luo et al

2015, Muhammed 2014, Shih 2015, Wu 2014,

Teodorescu 2015, Balula et al. 2015, Lee 2014). The

lack of vocabulary, according to a survey carried out

among the students of Management of Tourism,

Faculty of Informatics and Management, University

of Hradec Kralove is one of the most serious

weaknesses in their learning of English.

Therefore, this winter semester students had the

opportunity to try out a new method of teaching, the

so-called blended learning, which consisted of the

traditional, contact classes and, as a support, they

could exploit mobile learning targeted at the learning

and practicing of English words and phrases

discussed in the contact classes.

The research question is as follows: Will students

appreciate a mobile app tailored to their needs in their

English classes?

Berger, A., Klimova, B. and Poulova, P.

Mobile Application as Support of English on-Line Learning.

DOI: 10.5220/0007732506470653

In Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2019), pages 647-653

ISBN: 978-989-758-367-4

647

3 MOBILE APPS FOR ENGLISH

LANGUAGE TEACHING FOR

ANDROID OS

In the initial phase, there was a comparison of

currently expanded apps for language learning

support. Some of the most popular (free) mobile apps

for the Android operating system have been selected.

Each of these apps has been reviewed,

commented, and reviewed by third-party users.

3.1 Duolingo: Learn English

The app is available for download at

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.d

uolingo. About 50,000,000 downloads and an average

user rating of 4.7 confirm its popularity.

The following features were positively evaluated

when tested by a group of testers:

 Application is translated into Czech (CZ

localization).

 The application allows to translate the Czech

sentence into English by selecting the words

and sorting them correctly.

 Listening - listening to English phrases at two

speeds (normal and slower), user writes what

s/he has heard.

 If the typed answer is with an error (automatic

keypad correction), the application detects it,

warns the user of the typo, but still accepts the

answer.

 If the user does not know the answer and skips

the question, the question is evaluated as

incorrectly answered and the correct answer is

displayed.

 If the answer is correct, another translation

variant will be displayed.

 Daytime target setting – reminders by

notifications.

 Unlocking achievements - a great way to

gamble.

 Several levels of the process (depending on

complexity) - the ability to skip the level of a

cumulative test from a given level.

 Initial User Testing and Levelling (Unlocking

Previous Levels).

 Possibility to create an account (email, social

network).

As negative, testers rated these features:

 Czech translations must be accurate - only one

option is correct.

 Free translations are marked as incorrect

(Example: He was the first president. -> On byl

první president x Byl první president. –

According to the application, this is an error.).

 Unclear menu icons; it is not clear what the

icon means.

 Ads are displayed during the use.

Google Play users are generally happy with the

application and are evaluating it positively, for

example, "Great apps. I use it for different languages

and I recommend it mainly to beginners and

intermediate students as support for learning

English. A good system that motivates and it's free."

"Finally, something that coaches me every day, I find

it positive. It's great that there's also an active

teaching where people have to talk and write in

English what a person hears." (Duolingo n.d.).

3.2 English Grammar Test

The app is available at https://play.google.com/

store/apps/details?id=english.grammar.test.app, has

more than 5,000,000 downloads and an average rating

of 4.6.

The testers have positively evaluated that the tests

are organized according to the language level, mixed

or topic-specific, and after the test, there is an

evaluation of the results - correct and incorrect

answers with the possibility of checking and

explaining the correct answers (in English).

Its negatives include the fact that application is

only available in the English localization. Since the

input of questions is in English, it is essential to have

a certain level of vocabulary.

Google Play users rate the app positively, for

example, "Your purpose is perfect. If you make a

mistake, the app will explain why and what was

wrong. And a good English-speaking person can

learn a bit." "Very good for repetition and the

explanation is perfect." "Very good app with

grammar explanation when you make mistakes."

(English n.d.).

3.3 BBC – Learning English

The app is available for download at https://play.

google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dragonlab.bb

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

648

clearningenglish, has more than 500,000 downloads

and an average rating of 4.6.

Testers appreciate the focus on listening through

articles on different topics and a possibility of its

transcription and vocabulary.

The negative is that only English localization is

available. Because the vocabulary is explained in

English, it is necessary to have a slightly higher level

of vocabulary. While working with the app, the user

is disturbed by a lot of ads.

Comments from Google Play - "I'm trying briefly,

it contains plenty of ads that go into playback without

me being able to finish the first six minutes, so the app

has dropped twice. Lenovo Vibe P1 Mobile. Stability

is far away.", "Perfect English Exercises. I can

choose what I want to read or listen to. Whether about

current events or other interesting things. And the

selected phrases are explained in English, which I

very much appreciate." (BBC n.d.).

3.4 Learn 6,000 Words in English

The apps with an average rating of 4.5 and over

10,000,000 downloads is available at URL:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fu

neasylearn.english.

The testers have positively evaluated that the

application has Czech localization, although its

quality is not the best, but it is more of a machine

translation.

The quality of the localization, the fact that the

control elements and the flow of the application are

not very sophisticated and the user is difficult to

orientate at the first startup has been negatively

evaluated. The user is overwhelmed by a lot of

advertising, sometimes it is not clear what the

application control is and what the ad is. Individual

tests/games are slightly chaotic – e.g. image search -

the incorrect answer is marked in pink and the user

can respond until s/he responds correctly - the

application would benefit from a bit clearer and more

distinctive layout. The application is very

complicated on the navigation page and gaining

points/levels of games/tests is not user-friendly – after

unlocking more complicated test items, it is necessary

to go through all levels.

Google Play users rate the app as fun - "Fun, easy

learn. It's a great application that really improves

vocabulary. I have learned more than 50 words in 2

days.", "Great app. The only thing I have to say is the

occasional mistakes in the Czech translation, but it is

nothing. I did not mind purchasing the full version,

better to invest in this app than in most paper tests."

"Again, only ads. I do not like this app." (Naučte n.d.).

4 MOBILE APPLICATION

FOR THE TEACHING OF

ENGLISH – ENGLISH TODAY

The use of smart mobile learning devices offers the

opportunity to reach a larger group of students and to

make learning more pleasant. The vast majority of

educational mobile apps work on the principle of self-

study. There is no relationship between the teacher

and the students. This is a major weakness of these

apps. There is no possibility of communication

between the teacher and the students, and no feed-

back from the students themselves.

Our clever solution has two separate parts.

Teacher applications and student applications. These

two smart applications can easily communicate with

each other in both directions. The teacher is able to

get information on how students use the app, what

makes them the biggest problems, how they react to

the alert, and overall track their shift. Students'

feedback and a comprehensive overview of the entire

teaching process make it possible for the teacher to

continually improve and adapt teaching to the benefit

of their students.

The described solution is divided into two

application parts and one server part. The first

application part is designed as a web interface for the

teacher and the second application part is presented

with a mobile application for students. The server part

is responsible for storing information, authenticating

users, efficiently collecting large data, processing,

distributing messages, and responding to events from

both applications.

The main principle of the proposed solution is

Firebase technology from Google, Inc. After a

thorough analysis of all requirements and possibilities,

this technology was identified as the most suitable.

Firebase offers a variety of mobile and web application

development capabilities, ranging from authentication,

efficient data retention to communication.

The web application offers a number of features

specifically for the teacher. Each teacher can manage

several lessons. Each lesson defines individual lessons

to which specific words and phrases fall. Teachers can

notifications, and respond to their comments. Using

these options, the teacher can make contact with his/her

students and draw attention to the upcoming events.

The web interface also offers a key element, which is

the visualization of the results of all students. Based on

the visualization, it is possible to evaluate each student

separately, to compare the results between several

study courses or to modify the study plan.

Mobile Application as Support of English on-Line Learning

649

Figure 1: The web part of the app.

Students are assigned a mobile application.

Through a mobile application, the student are

enrolled into a specific course. The app offers the

ability to study and test available vocabulary and

phrases. The student chooses the lesson s/he needs to

study and tests words and phrases in it. For each

phrase or vocabulary, s/he can get a translation, while

using TextToSpeech technology, as well as

pronunciation. The application enables immediate

communication with the teacher. At the same time,

the application collects all user data and distributes it

to the server part for subsequent research and

evaluation by the teacher. The student is advised by

his/her teacher by means of notifications, e.g., to

study a certain lesson. Via the mobile application, the

student is able to contact his/her teacher at any time

to make contact and discuss the given problem.

5 USED TECHNOLOGIES

The best solution for this specific case was Firebase

technology by Google Inc. This technology offers a

wide range of options and many services it provides

are used for the project.

5.1 Platform

The application part for the teacher was designed as a

web application, primarily because of the simplicity

of the teacher's input to the Internet browser.

Javascript, specifically ECMAScript 6, was chosen as

the programming language, and the ReactJS library

by Facebook, Inc., a modern and highly perspective

ReactJS library.

Considering the target group and the ratio of

students using the Android operating system versus

other mobile operating systems, the project was

firstly implemented for Android OS. All mobile

application code is written in Java.

5.2 Authentication

A very important step was to design a way of

authenticating teachers and students. A classic

combination of email and password has been selected

for logging in.

5.3 Real-time Database

All NoSQL technology has been chosen to store all

the data and almost instantly accessed them using a

cloud Real-Time database.

5.4 Notifications

The principle of notification was chosen as the core

element of the platform, specifically for the

communication between the teacher and the students.

Google Cloud Messaging allows teachers to send

short messages to all students. On the basis of the

report, the mobile client generates a notification and

alerts the student to study.

5.5 Statistics

Data retention, the so-called Big Data, allows the

teacher to evaluate the student's achievement and

examine the results within a certain timeline. One of

the interesting cases of monitoring is, for example,

the students' reaction to the notification from the

teacher.

5.6 Feedback

Each student is able to react to a specific lesson,

possibly a task assigned by the teacher via his/her

mobile app. The teacher is able to react at any time

and contact the student and discuss some issue with

the student.

5.7 Implemented Solution

Once logged in, the teacher is able to enter the

following screen.

In the web interface, the teacher can edit the

content of individual lessons, the vocabulary and

inform students about their results.

CSEDU 2019 - 11th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

650

Figure 2: Editing of individual lessons.

Figure 3: Detail of one of the students with his/her results.

Mobile Application as Support of English on-Line Learning

651

A regular user (student) is able to access the app

through the Google Play store and use the application

on his/her smart mobile device.

Figure 4: An overview of available lessons.

4 CONCLUSIONS

One of the principles of the mobile application is its

simplicity. It is very important for the user to

concentrate only on the studied issues. Many of the

available mobile applications that focus on similar

issues also offer possibilities and functionality that

the student does not use and unnecessarily complicate

the learning process through the application. This

mobile application offers only what students really

need and is designed to be as simple as possible for

their users.

Currently, the proposed solution only offers an

Android application, which is available for free at

Google Play store. The reason was the ratio of

students who use the Android operating system on

their smart devices. Java was selected to develop the

mobile application. The next step in the development

of this mobile application will also include its

expansion to the Apple's platform and iOS, as well as

implement-ing this mobile app in companies to

enhance their communication with foreign partners

(Hola and Pikhart 2014).

The mobile application described above was in

use both for full-time and part-time students of

Management of Tourism in their third year of study

from October 2017 till December 2017 as a pilot

project. Overall, on the basis of students’ evaluation,

it was accepted positively. Students especially

appreciated its interactivity. They also pointed out

that they had been learning faster and more

effectively since they could use it at any time and

anywhere on the way home, for example, on the bus

or train. The main thing was that they were forced to

learn and revise new vocabulary because they were

sent notifications by their teacher twice a week.

The next step is to analyse students’ final tests and

see whether the students who used the mobile

application had better results than those who did not

use it.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This review study is supported by the SPEV 2019

project, Faculty of Informatics and Management,

University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic.

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